No More, No Less
by StJaye
Summary: Fitzwilliam Darcy has been yanked from literature for the 8 billionth time at least , and lands in modern-day Toronto, Ontario, where a very different adventure awaits him than any before.
1. One

_A/N: Is anyone else bothered by the fact that people are somehow able to publish and sell really bad Darcy fanfiction? Every time I'm at Chapters, I want to ask how this happens. Angrily. Consider this a protest piece. _

It was a cold day in October when Fitzwilliam stepped from what was supposed to be a perfectly ordinary carriage ride out onto the southeast corner of Bloor and Yonge in the bustling 21st century city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and found himself face to face with a buxom hot sauce promoter waving a flyer and a hideously labelled red bottle. He found her so much like the fish sellers in the dingier parts of his own London that, for several seconds, he was able to convince himself that he had not been out far too late and imbibed far too much and was now creating fantastical illusions and – he took the bottle and nodded curtly to the girl as she turned to her next victim.

If this has been the first time he had been rocketed into a suspicious circumstance, launched through the time-space continuum to an unfamiliar street in the frankly disturbing future, or shoved unceremoniously from a hackney without so much as a "by-your-leave", Fitzwilliam Darcy would perhaps have not brushed himself off quite so casually. As it was, he had long ago resigned himself to being summoned by the heartfelt cries of lonely young women from across the centuries, and so was all set to make the best of yet another mildly entertaining situation.

"Excuse me," he began, trying to get the attention of the hot sauce girl. She was animatedly explaining the merits of her brand to a young man who looked more like a deer in the headlights than a potential customer. "I say," he tried again, to a rather harried-looking businessman gripping his briefcase for dear life.

"My name is Darcy –" to a woman in flats with a decidedly uninterested curl to her upper lip.

"Oh please," she responded. "You're as outdated as the Beat Generation. I wish you hipsters would try something a little more avant-garde when you go out and try to pretend you're not trying desperately to impress people. Your ascot isn't even correctly tied, you shameless fool," and walked away, shoes clicking on the leaf-strewn cement.

Darcy sighed and wished heartily to be back in the comfort of a library – any library – where the women whose wishes summoned him knew who he was and, more importantly, how he liked his tea. Reminding himself that at least this wasn't the American Midwest in the early 1900s, and he was as unlikely to be shot here as in his own carriage back in comfortably familiar Hertfordshire, he began to slouch westward with the air of a man who has seen it all and doesn't think very much of any of it.

Yrred Nacnud had reason to lament his bizarre name, his lack of romance, his accursed hair which would never do anything _right_, his inexplicable affinity for Tilda Swinton, and his inescapable desire to _be_ Dame Judi Dench. He also lamented – to anyone who would listen – the shiftless indecision of an undergraduate life, or the hideous fact that boat shoes were too comfortable NOT to wear even though wearing them made you look like a complete prat. At the moment when Fitzwilliam Darcy was getting his temporal bearings in front of one of the tasteful Holt Renfrew window displays, Yrred was listening to his director prattle on about how his character didn't realize how dull he was being in his treatment of his sons and lamenting his ever auditioning for King Lear in the first place.

"Does that make sense, Nac?" she warbled, and he turned his formidable glare on her and layered his tones as dramatically as possible, for maximum persuasive power, "Les, I think we should cut this whole section. It adds nothing! Nothing, I tell you."

The artistic director piped up, "Nac, seriously. It's Shakespeare! We can't cut Shakespeare just because you don't like Gloucester as a character."

Favouring her with a withering stare, Yrred intoned, "Lia. Please. I _despise_ Gloucester. And this section is irrelevant to the play as a whole, so we should cut it because it's Shakespeare showing off."

Les: "You know I'm uncomfortable cutting anything, Nac."

"Fine. I will cut it for you. THERE," he flourished, sweeping his pen through his script haphazardly as he watched Les and Lia cringe from the corner of his eye, then tore the page out and crumpled it, on the spur of the moment, for effect.

Les and Lia looked at each other and smiled secret smiles. "I guess this means you're off book?" Les said in the most off-hand manner possible, and he silently cursed himself for underestimating her. "So we'll take the scene from the top when you get back from getting yourself an iced coffee as a reward for all of that memorization." He saw them high-five as he walked out and pretended not to notice.

Les was right, though – he had needed a walk and a cold drink to calm him down. He normally found interpreting characters simple, though no less enjoyable for the ease with which he slipped into role after role. There was something difficult about Gloucester, though, and he had a nasty suspicion that Les and Lia, with their uncanny insight into actors and their incredibly deep knowledge of the play, knew that the part would cause him no end of grief. "They trust you," he tried to remind himself, "they trust that you can bring Gloucester to life." But of course, that meant that they were going to push him as hard as they had been.

"Small iced cappuccino, please. No, I don't need a 'flavour shot'. Thank you."

It didn't help that the majority of his scenes were with a completely inexperienced actor who was both terrifyingly good and had no concept of sharing energy onstage, so that Yrred left every rehearsal absolutely drained from supplying all of the energy himself. And also, if truth be told, from keeping up with the boy's raw talent. Les and Lia were never anything less than helpful and fair, but they were definitely not compensating for –

And here Yrred lost his train of thought as, at the entrance to the Tim Horton's, he ran into an exceptionally dressed man who looked like he had stumbled from the early 19th century.

"Is everyone intolerably blind in this century?" Darcy grumbled, glaring peevishly at the tall, slender young man pushing dirty blonde hair from his eyes with a grimace.

Yrred calmly sipped his drink, unfazed. "Yes."

Darcy was a little taken aback at the audacity and the rich, deep tones of the voice, but collected himself quickly and demanded to know where he was, what century it was, and where he could find a hot bath and a decent cup of tea.

Yrred raised an eyebrow and thought to himself that if he brought this impersonator or highly priced male prostitute, or whatever he was back to the rehearsal space, maybe Les and Lia would be so distracted that they would let him off the hook and he could go home and memorize that scene that they obviously were not going to let him cut.

"All your questions will be answered," he said, mysteriously, eyes wide and hands sweeping through the air (much to Darcy's bemusement), "just follow meeeeeeeeeeee…" and began walking at a stately pace back towards the college.


	2. Two

Yrred and Darcy were waiting in mutual dignified (if a trifle aloof) silence, neither willing to start the awkward small talk, for Les or Lia or _anyone_ with a key to open the security door. Yrred refrained from noisily slurping the remnants of iced coffee. Darcy refrained from pulling out his pocketwatch for the seventeenth time. They both refrained from looking at each other anywhere higher than the knees – Darcy couldn't help but notice that his mysterious saviour was wearing what he had learned to refer to as "chinos" or "khakis". Yrred was mostly wondering if he had taken too long and Les and Lia had ended rehearsal and he could abandon this attractive – _strange_ – man and make a run for it.

His hopes were dashed by the turning of the door handle and Les bounding through it to throw her arms around him. "Oh, Nac! It's like it's been ages!"

"…"

"Simply centuries!" (this muffled in his sweater)

"It's been all of ten minutes, Les."

Emerging from the depths of his shoulder, she glared up at him. "Well, I know _that_. I'm trying to cheer you up! Get you in the groove! Y'know…groove?"

She slowly stopped jiving as she took in his disapproving stare and Darcy's blank bemusement. "Groove?" she tried once more before he tutted and patted her arm with a free hand.

"There, there, darling, not all of us can be as witty and amusing as I am. Let's finish this godforsaken rehearsal so I can go home and memorize the rest of this awful script – yes, I _know_ it's Shakespeare but we can't put the man on a pedestal some of this is absolute trite crap. Also, I brought you a present."

Darcy, recognizing his cue, made a sweeping bow. It was best, he had learned, to begin by behaving as gallantly as possible, as the women and girls who summoned him had usually forgotten his dislike of frivolity of all sorts. Impress them, spar with them gently, give them a lesson or two about waiting to find the right man and not idly wishing for someone else's, then get out and go home and complain to Elizabeth about how terrible it was to be so wanted all the time.

Les executed a fairly proficient stage bow in response – clearly she wasn't even going to _try_ a courtesy, despite her billowing skirt. "You'll want," she said to Yrred as she straightened, "to prepare for Lia and I to be a little less focused on you than we might normally be. And, down we go, if you please, gentlemen."

Yrred shut the door behind them. Down the stairs, around the corner, through the door, nearly smack into that incorrigible boy's perverse interest in the nuances of his character, and Lia turned around.

"Oh," she said, "well. Isn't this a lovely surprise! We send you out for coffee, Nac, and you bring us back the ideal 19th century gentleman. Aside from the ascot, which is definitely askew. Back to the scene, Les, do you think? I suspect our Edgar has quite enough background now to make a better go of it."

"Absolutely," Les responded, affectionately kissing the top of Lia's head, "Nac, you may borrow my script. Our new friend can sit with us – what am I saying, 'our new friend' – we don't even know your name!" she shook her head at herself (Yrred busied himself stealing Lia's script), laughed, and extended a businesslike hand. "Les, and this," gesturing to the petite redhead executing a flawless dancer's courtesy beside her, "is Lia. We're directing –"

"_You_'re directing," Lia corrected.

"_We_'re directing King Lear, with Yrred as one of our stars. Are you familiar with the play?"

"But first," Lia smiled at Les, who smiled back, and then at him, "allow us to extend our welcome to our rehearsal space."

"Oh, yes, of course!" Les agreed, nodding vigorously.

Yrred sighed.

Darcy bowed for a second time, straightened, and intoned the lines he had scripted for himse;f through much trial and error. "I am most pleased to be present, of course. My name is Fitzwilliam Darcy – my card, Miss Lia, Miss Les."

Two heads – copper and chocolate – leaned over the stiff, creamy paper with little gasps and flurries of fingers, then two voices broke out in overlapping questions and their actors were momentarily forgotten.

Yrred was amused. He hadn't imagined that his distraction tactic would be anywhere near this successful. He suspected that he could murder the young man who with furrowed brow was pacing through monologues, dance on the corpse, and host a jovial funeral featuring himself in a cameo as the entire _Black Swan_ film, without their notice.

He found himself fascinated, though, try as he may to imagine the particularly spectacular way in which he would provide solace to the distraught directors and step in to play the most tear-jerking heart-wrenching Edgar ever seen onstage or off. The man who called himself Darcy was a stunning creature. Black hair waving over the tips of his ears and sweeping over the expanse of a majestic forehead, bristling sideburns trimmed with a surgeon's precision framing high cheekbones and trailing into a strong, well-set jaw…and the build of the man! Tall and broad-shouldered, long of limb and wearing clothes that only showed the trim figure to best advantage. And the voice! A rasping burr beneath a courtier's cultured tones, exquisitely chiseled lips shaping every word with care. Expressive hands – large hands, with a few curls of dark hair on the backs of them – and a solemn bearing that was graceful out of long habit but still bore traces of a natural awkwardness.

Yrred had to admit it: the man was textbook gorgeous. It was no wonder Lia and Les – usually so put-together despite their inclination towards the overly dramatic – were pretending very hard to be only casually interested in him. He shook his head, collecting himself. The distraction was working! He could go home, memorize the scene, and be back for whatever godawful call time tomorrow knowing it well enough to fake it.

"Gabriel, let's just go, what do you say? Les and Lia are clearly going to be here all night with this man, and we could both use the sleep. Hectic rehearsal schedule, lots of line memorizing, it's been crazy for us this week."

Gabriel thought about this for a moment, then nodded and laughed, in his happy-go-lucky way. "You're right, Nac. Let's just ask, though, in case? I know Les gets upset when we don't get everything done that she expected, and I think Lia might have some more insight into these four lines I've been puzzling over."

Yrred cursed the boy's trustworthiness, gave a dramatic sigh, and followed him over to the still animated discussion by the door.

"Let me take it from here," Gabriel stage-whispered ("Of all the things for him to actually know how to do!" Yrred marvelled sharply in his head).

"—don't even worry, Mr. Darcy, we'll take excellent care of you while you're here. Les has this fantastic tea collection, and I'm sure between the two of us we have something that will suit your fancy, and I have more cheese right now than I know what to do with. And also – yes, Gabriel?"

The boy threw a rather unsubtle wink in Yrred's direction and laid a conspiratorial hand on Lia's arm. "Lia, Les – Nac and I can see that you have your hands full, so we're going to go over to my place and run lines for an hour or so while you take care of whatever you need to. Does that sound okay with both of you?"

Lia looked at Les, inquisitively, and Les narrowed her eyes at Yrred. "I suspect you both could actually do with a proper night's sleep – we've had days that are taking far too much out of you."

Lia nodded in assent, finding Les' hand with hers. "Be good to yourselves and don't worry about lines for tonight. Gabriel, remember what we discussed about your motivations in that scene under the tree." To Les, "Haircuts?"

"Oh, right! Thanks for reminding me. Gabriel, you're fine – just keep it this length – Nac, you need to get a military-style cut. Short at the sides, short at the top, no bangs."

Unwilling to waste time arguing, Yrred pulled Gabriel out of the room as the boy prattled on about how appropriate it was that all the lords were going to be costumed like the career soldiers they rightly were and how Lia and Les were just brilliant and how grateful he was to be working with such talented directors and such a talented cast and how much he looked up to Yrred and how he was learning so much and…

Darcy watched them go with a smile on his face.

"Nac is a good guy," Lia said softly, leaning her head on Les' shoulder.

"We're so lucky that he agreed to be part of this cast despite this not being in any way the part he wanted," Les added, her head coming to rest on Lia's.

"He truly does seem remarkable," Darcy replied, looking with a little curiosity at the now-empty hallway.


	3. Three

_For CB, because of love_

"How many," Darcy enquired as politely as possible given his inability to catch his runaway breath, "flights of stairs before we reach your rooms, Miss Lia?" He was silently fuming, biting back all the more sardonic phrases that came to the tip of his tongue, at his own inability to climb more than seven flights, and at the audacity of the architect of this singularly impossible building. To create such a maze of narrow corridors and poorly lit stairwells, such crumbling tunnels, and then to populate the place with dreadfully weathered doors whose numbers were tarnished – the man must have been mad or the worst kind of fiend.

Lia laughed in front of him and Les patted his shoulder consolingly from behind, the combination somewhat unnerving. It did not seem to matter the number of occasions in which he was thrust into various epochs of the future; he could never quite seem to become comfortable with the familiarity with which he was treated in the twenty-first century.

"I know," Les sighed, "it seems like they go on forever. There are only two more, and one of them is small, and the sherry is absolutely worth it."

Lia shrugged from above them. "The suite is called Sub-Heaven because it's the highest place in the college, you know. The climb is great exercise, really, and we don't have much time to get any formal exercising done with all this crazy rehearsing. We're fit and trim, Les, and going to have a riotously good time at the cast party because of it, and don't you forget it."

Les sighed dramatically, but kept her peace, and Darcy focused his mind on the promise of sherry, and of tea, and of a hot bath as he continued to step – he couldn't bear to bring himself to trudge – up the endless stairs.

Finally, Lia's key turned in a lock, he caught the heavy door as she let it go behind her, and found himself in yet another narrow, poorly-lit corridor.

"Just to the right, ahead of you, Mr. Darcy," Les' voice came over his shoulder.

"Other right, Mr. Darcy. Forgive Les; she's directionally challenged," Lia corrected from his left. "Up here!"

He held the door, holding in another acid remark, then followed Lia up five more steps and into an admittedly charming sitting room. Inside, a rather handsome young man lounged with his head in the lap of a woman in a flowing gown and as many bracelets and rings as a gypsy. Darcy assumed that they were lovers and, when they did not rouse themselves from their intimate posture, shook his head internally at the lack of basic social graces in this century.

"Trinity!" chorused Les and Lia, and them "Lena!" while the two on the couch waved them in and overlapped each other with cries of "Lia!" and "Les!" and "Who is this dapper man?"

Lia pulled out a chair from the table by the door, and offered it to Darcy as she began to introduce him. "Trin, Lena – this is a friend of Nac's who came by to see Lear. He's from out of town, and Nac doesn't have space for him, so Les and I will be looking after him until the play opens. His name is, charmingly, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Darcy, these are my roommates, Trinity Lorsh-Athley, and Lena Em."

The blonde boy rose from his supine position and reached to shake Darcy's hand, flashing a wide smile that ran from his full lips to his dancing eyes. The gypsy waved and smiled as well, her features rearranging themselves into inexplicably greater beauty than moments earlier.

Les laid a hand on the back of Darcy's chair and began asking Trinity and Lena about their days, and Trinity launched into a tirade about the evils of a group of carousing men who seemed to all share the surname 'Welch" (a group of brothers, perhaps? Or a more nefarious brotherhood? Darcy was unsure and cared even less). The grievances whirled about his head, and, with a few adjustments, he might have sworn he was in a smoking room in Oxford, hearing the collegiate boys talk with scorn about their compatriots. It was not a scene that had afforded him much pleasure while in school, nor was it one with which he sought to engage now.

He focused instead on Lia's capable movements as she pushed teabags (Twining's, thankfully, a name that he had found symbolizing quality through many centuries, despite the atrocious concept of anything but loose tea) into mugs and fussed about with an electric kettle. She was humming quietly to herself, but Lena picked up on it and excused herself, returning a moment later with a portable computer playing some soft music Darcy had learned to call "indie" during his last sojourn in this era.

The kettle boiled, Lia poured, and Les ended her conversation with Trinity.

"To my room, to discuss things, Les? Mr. Darcy? If we're too loud, Trin, just let us know. Good luck with your paper, Lena!"

Before he knew it, Darcy was ensconced in an armchair by a window overlooking a street light, Les was sprawled out on the floor with a cushion, and Lia was curled up in a comforter on her bed. The room was sparsely furnished – no Victorian grandeur here – but tasteful, with art on the walls and books simply everywhere, light glowing softly from beautiful little lamps, and a paper lantern hung between the curtains.

He found himself somewhat on edge, unusual given how commonplace this sort of discussion had become and how easily he was able to deal with this sort of girl.

Les spoke first. "Presumably, you are impersonating – and doing an excellent job, I might add – Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy for a reason? I mean, aside from the obvious one of having your pick of fainting maidens everywhere."

Lia intervened. "That's not to say we're accusing you of anything – we just want to know. Is this some practical joke Nac's thought up? Or did you two really just happen on each other today?"

Darcy cleared his throat. "Miss Les, if I may answer your questions first. I am doing an excellent job of impersonating Miss Austen's Darcy simply because I am Miss Austen's Darcy. And, if you will forgive my saying so, I have had my identity questioned by hundreds of women far older and more well-read than either of you and took to it with no more grace. Furthermore, my pick of fainting maidens would be none. As you may be well aware, the only maiden I picked would no sooner faint than admit she were wrong, and I love her dearly for it. As for your questions, Miss Lia, Yrred Nacnud and I met today outside a café. I have never seen him before in my life. He could not possibly be involved in my appearance in your city."

"I always forget," Les smiled, "how much our love for Darcy is predicated on his love for Lizzie."

"What was involved in your appearance in our city, Mr. Darcy, and whatever do you mean when you say that your identity has been questioned specifically by women?"

"Lia makes a good point, Mr. Darcy. Won't you tell us how you arrived here? If we are meant to believe that you've stepped out of a novel – which I think I'm right in saying neither of us would mind – then we must have a better idea of the mechanics of the process."

Darcy's rumbling was drowned in his tea. It scalded his tongue and he blew on it fiercely in revenge. Finally, he had gathered his thoughts sufficiently to avoid being unnecessarily cutting, and began to enumerate points on his fingers as he spoke.

"One: if I had knowledge of what you call the mechanics of this process, I would have taken great pains long since to ensure that I was beyond the reach of whatever witchery has caused my state. Two: I am aware on that I have been and continue to be summoned by intellectual women whose beds are cold and whose hearts are lonely, who have convinced themselves that the remedy to their unhappiness is someone like me to satisfy their wit, warm their beds, and fill their hearts. Three: I arrived here by being thrown out of my hansom onto your street and into the nearly exposed bosom of a hawker of hot sauce. Four: this tea appears to be over-steeped and if I may find some place to dispose of this floating contraption I will ensure it does not progress too far towards becoming undrinkable."

There was silence punctuated only by Les moving a charmingly enameled canister towards him.

Finally, Lia spoke. "I don't know whether to believe you, Mr. Darcy, but one thing is for certain: if you had anywhere to go, you would have gone there by now. So we are going to have to take care of you, and that means you shall have to be grateful to us until we have the time and thought to get you home –"

"How do you usually get home, Mr. Darcy?" Les' voice was very quiet, but her eyes were frank and open.

"After I have salved a heart and been released by the woman who summoned me."

"And that means we would have to find her and bring her to you, wouldn't it?"

"It is usual for her to reveal herself to me."

"Then it really is just a matter of waiting. Lia's right. We'll take care of you. My room or yours, do you think, Lia?"

"Yours," Lia responded after a moment, "my floor is more comfortable, and there's more room in here for both of us. Plus we have access to the couch cushions from the living room, and Henderson Tower has fewer stairs for Darcy to climb."

"Excellent. We'll all probably be more clear-headed in the morning, and be able to sort out what to do, moving forward. I'll bring you down, Mr. Darcy, and get you set up, then I'll come back here."

Lia and Les looked at him expectantly, and he scowled inwardly. Taking charity irked him in these adventures, as did the inevitable prospect of at least three mornings without Lizzie's smile and about the same number of evenings featuring less than stellar food and drink. But he knew enough to agree with Les, that rest would smooth things over, so acceded with a grim nod and soon found himself following Les back down the endless flights of stairs.


	4. Four

_For DD, for being my Muse_

Gabriel was, as usual, talking Yrred's ear off as they sat in the quad and waited for Les and Lia to call them for their part of the scene.

"It's a brilliant opportunity, you know? To work with such talented people! I mean, Nac, watching you and acting with you has taught me so much, and I am so grateful for everything. I really do think I'm only making Les and Lia happy because you're so awesome. It's also great to get to act with Haqir, you know? I don't know how he's managing everything, directing another play at the same time."

Yrred nodded, half listening, half watching as Darcy tried to look awake beside Lia in the grass. "It's Haq – he's a theatre giant. None of us should be surprised."

"But how dedicated you have to be! Does he sleep?"

"No."

"Does he eat?"

"Probably not."

"Does he have any time to, you know, go out on dates or study?"

"Definitely not."

"What a man! What a prince! What a king of the theatre! If only I could be like him."

"Oh, please," Yrred snapped, finally turning his full attention to Gabriel's glowing face, "no one wants to have the theatre consume them. It chews you up, destroys you, and spits you out in so many pieces you can never find yourself again. And when you finally burn out – and we all do, sooner or later – then what do you do with your life? Acting doesn't give you any skills beyond the stage and when you get there, and somehow without you being aware of it theatre becomes a parasite that leaches life from you instead of giving it, you have nothing. Don't aspire to be a theatre man, Gabriel. It isn't what you want."

"But think of the glory, Nac!"

"What good is glory when you're some dissolute, starving artist, old before your time and bitter about the world?"

"It's all you have left, when that happens, Nac. That's what glory's good for – to be what you have left to cling to. That's the message of this play, or one of them." Les was leaning against the railing beside them, smiling a little sadly, and twirling her pencil in her slender fingers. "But right now, we need to deal with one of the other messages of the play: it's not just our parents than make us who we are."

Yrred pulled himself from the ground with a melodramatic groan. "Oh, yes, let's see how Gloucester fails today. What joy!"

Gabriel had bounded to his feet and was rummaging in his bag for a pencil of his own. Yrred ignored him and stalked toward the makeshift stage, script clutched in one hand and the other brushing his hair from his eyes.

Darcy watched him go with something akin to sympathy. He knew his own acidic tongue was the result of feeling somewhat alone, and, from Yrred's latest speech, it seemed the young man knew something of loneliness himself.

Les returned to sit beside Lia on their blanket, and rehearsal resumed. Darcy was stunned by the raw talent Gabriel exhibited, taking direction and turning it into flawless action, really embodying the character that the two director's forced upon him. Les and Lia surprised him as well. They were sure and capable, Lia forcefully demanding more from all three actors, guiding them skillfully to greater brilliance, Les quietly urging them to think and bring their own experiences to the characters. Haqir Kas, who played Yrred's bastard soon Edmund, was something else altogether. He flowed and whispered and intrigued and yelled and brought so many conflicting emotions to the stage that Darcy got quite lost watching him.

But it was Yrred who surprised Darcy the most. He seemed to be the rock at the centre of the scene by nature of his ability and his imposing presence, but Les and Lia were both furiously writing in their notebooks and all of their notes were, it seemed, for him.

"Be unstable!" Lia demanded.

"Your son just told you that your other son is plotting against you – how does that make you feel?" Les cajoled.

"Cheat out and for heavens' sake stop with the anger." Lia fumed.

"Or at least make it impotent anger, deflated, like you think this is your failure, and you're angry at yourself," Les amended.

It went on, and on, and Yrred took it all but gave back less and less until finally Les stopped the scene in the middle and called for a fifteen-minute break.

"What's gotten into him, do you think?" she sighed. "He's so brilliant, but he's just…his heart's not in it and I don't know why."

"Well, he hates Gloucester, for one thing," Lia remarked.

"But I really think it's more than that. I mean, it's not as if we've typecast him. Nac plays all these strong characters, these moral characters, these grandfatherly, thoughtful characters – even the mad King last fall was regal and commanding. This is supposed to be a challenge! To be weak and pathetic and still have people love him; this is something new and exciting and I don't know why he's so unhappy with it. It has to be something else."

"Maybe we haven't explained it properly to him?"

"I'm running out of ways, Lia, really I am. I think it's an underlying SOMETHING, and I wish I knew what it was."

"I do, too," Lia whispered, reaching out her arms for a hug, "I do, too. For now, can we talk Haq? I'm worried that we aren't going to have enough time to rehearse with him and Goneril. He's not seductive enough right now, and I think those scenes will help him bring some of that into the rest of the play."

"You're right, actually; I've been noticing that, too. Thankfully Haq is good with the subtle things, or else we'd never be able to get Edmund off the ground. I'll make sure we book extra rehearsal time for that scene – Tuesday, do you think? And while we're there we can get him to do his opening monologue as well."

"Tuesday is when we're doing fight choreography with him and Gabriel, so it's perfect – he'll be able to blend everything."

"Brilliant."

Darcy listened to this exchange with wonderment. Was his intuition about Yrred correct – could the man be suffering some kind of torment that was affecting his acting? And, if so, could it be that, this time, he had been called from his life beyond the pages to be a friend, a confidante, someone who knew what bitterness was and had found what cured it? He thought it might just be, and, taking his leave of the women, began to walk toward the clump where Gabriel was once more holding forth on the magic of the theatre, as Yrred and Haq pored over their scripts.

He arrived as Les and Lia called out a scene number, and Gabriel bounded and Haq walked to the stage, leaving Yrred storming inwardly as Darcy sat in the grass beside him.


End file.
